Guido Scala

(14 February 1936 - 6 January 2001, Italy)

Guido Scala was one of the most famous and successful Italian Disney artists. In his 35-year run on Disney comics, he drew about 465 stories. Born in Turin, Scala started his career in comics in 1950 under the guidance of Luciano Bottaro. He assisted Bottaro on his comics for the publishers Alpe and Bianconi, and continued the series 'Pik e Pok' when Bottaro went into civil service. After a while, Scala ended the cooperation and moved to Australia for a couple of years. There, he produced the series 'Captain Bottleneck' for the Cleveland Publishing Company in Sydney.

He returned to Italy in 1959, and continued to work with Bottaro and writer Carlo Chendi ('Baldo', 'Oscar', 'Lo Sceriffo Maiopi', 'Pinko & Ponko', 'Redipicche', stories with Warner Bros characters), while also creating characters of his own, such as 'Petruska', 'Pipobec' and 'Radussol'. Scala's popularity increased when he started to work for Disney. He drew his first Disney work in cooperation with Bottaro in 1962. He initially drew only stories with 'Mickey Mouse', but from 1971, he also did 'Duck' stories. The highlight from Scala's Disney output are his Duck parodies on world literature, including works by Jules Verne, Goethe, Jonathan Swift, Dostojevski and Ernest Hemmingway. Although most of his work was for Disney since the late 1960s, he also illustrated some Kauka comics for the German magazines Fix und Foxi and Primo in the 1970s.